In response to the horsemeat crisis, the European Commission established the Food Fraud Network (FFN), comprised of competent authorities from 28 European member countries as well as Switzerland, Norway and Iceland plus institutions of the European Commission. This network operates in addition to the RASFF network, which already has a food fraud component. Moreover, a system called Administrative Assistance and Cooperation (AAC) was established to help identify non-compliances in Europe. And while RASFF is focused on health risks (although not exclusively), AAC is focused on non-compliances and food fraud.
Does that make sense? Only partially, in my opinion. The RASFF alert system could have simply been expanded and improved in terms of data quality when it comes to food fraud cases. So clearly, there is significant duplication at taxpayers expense. What does make sense is to have a dedicated, transnational network to deal with trans-border cases of food fraud, to foster collaboration and lower administrative hurdles between member states on issues of food fraud.
The FFN has published its 2017 report. Before you get all excited reading about the many cases… the information provided is very limited. It only lists the number of cases in the AAC system for non-compliances (597 in 2017), with Germany (164) and Austria (135) being the only countries reporting cases in the hundreds. The majority of other countries report a double-digit number of cases (e.g. Britain 39, Czech Republic 33, Italy 19 and Spain 13).
For suspected food fraud, 178 cases were reported in total in 2017, up from 156 in 2016. Again, Germany, France, and Italy lead the charts (Figure 1).
Figure 1. Top 5 AAC suspected food fraud case reporting countries
In terms of food fraud categories, mislabeling was the most common type (88), followed by replacement/dilution/addition (88), document tampering (36) and unapproved treatment (28). In comparison to 2016 data, in particular one category saw a significant increase in the number of cases (Figure 2).
Figure 2. Growth/Decline by FF Category 2017 (in comparison to 2016)
There is little information in the report about the actual 178 cases, except for four EU coordinated cases:
- The follow-up of the poorly handled fipronil case.
- The illegal treatment of tuna: i) sale of tuna destined for canning as fresh (temperature of -18C was not maintained) and ii) the change of color using e.g. vegetable extracts, salts or carbon monoxide.
- Adulteration of beeswax with paraffin or stearin for illicit financial gain.
- Activities in third countries where the EU worked with non-EU countries to request additional checks at certain establishments or even asking to withdraw of products on the list of permitted import products. Examples include nitrofurans in shrimps from India, monoxide treatment of frozen tuna loins from Indonesia and prohibited drugs in seafood from Vietnam.
The full report can be downloaded here.
